Technology has changed the world and not everyone is experienced with the types of free tools that are available online or the ways they can be used in our jobs and personal lives. The iHCPL program was created to increase understanding of and comfort with these tools. This program was adapted from the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg's Learning 2.0 program and has been enthusiastically received by the staff of Harris County Public Library, who started the staff iHCPL program three weeks ago and are ready to share it with the public.

So, if you've ever wondered what it's like to have your own blog, to post pictures on Flickr, to catalog your personal library on LibraryThing or to create your own online alter ego, then the iHCPL learning program is made for you! By the end of this nine week program, you will have done all of these things and much more.

Each week of the program is centered around a theme, such as blogging or sharing photos, and 2-3 discovery exercises are posted each week to explore these themes. Anyone following through the program is encouraged to share their discoveries through their own blog, which is set up as part of the program.

Sue Wortman writes "The University of Michigan has created a Flickr set celebrating Banned Book Week which starts September 29. The Flickr exhibit features pictures of a wide variety of library staff, each reading their favorite banned book. Books shown in the photographs are linked to the appropriate University of Michigan library catalog record.

The aim of this project is to identify both public service and behind the scenes library staff to our patrons as we encourage the ideals of intellectual freedom necessary in an academic library.

In at the Brooklyn Public Library: rock concerts, children playing and singing, adults talking.

Out at the Brooklyn Public Library: getting shushed by librarians.

That's because recently-appointed Brooklyn Public Library Executive Director Dionne Mack-Harvin views libraries as community centers - places where people are expected to talk to each other, not sit in silence.

Mack-Harvin is so determined to end the shushing that librarians from all 60 branches have been attending training sessions to get the word out about her approach.

Anonymous Patron writes "The folks at Library Journal seem to be trying oh so hard to be very cutting-edge and trendy. Take a good, close look at their home page and you'll see blogging, talkback, all manner of boxes and buttons, and lately, what seem to be many "news" stories about vendor products, presumably a cheap way to romance advertisers with free content as an inducement to spend more on display ads...at the expense of editorial integrity.

Best, though, could be the RSS feed they must be mighty proud of. Just enter http://feeds.feedburner.com/LibraryJournalNews into your feed reader and you'll quickly, easily and conveniently get the latest library news aggregated at the click of a mouse...with the most recent one dated March 12, 2007!!

Nobody at the all high, mighty, trendy and opinionated LJ has bothered to update the RSS feed in almost six months. Nice, huh?"

In sum, Library 2.0 has done a lot for the library world. So, while the term and hype dies down or changes to something else, rest assured that change has occurred in big ways and that libraries are adapting to the world. They are not doing this through the institutions themselves, but through a steadily increasing change of heart in librarians on the whole. Harp on hype all you want; Library 2.0 needed to happen and the world is better off because of it.

Steve Johnson writes "An interview with Aaron Swartz, creator of the "basic framework" of the new Open Library Project now sponsored by Internet Archive. His comment on existing bibliographic tools: "I can search an academic library or WorldCat, but the quality of data is pretty weak - you can get basic bibliographic info, but no reviews and weak search and a painful interface and most require a subscription."